Workers talking politics walk fine line

Politics has long been up there with sex, religion and money as a topic to avoid among polite company.

But what about in the office?

With the presidential election in full swing, business etiquette expert Barbara Pachter advises people not to engage in political discussions at work.

You’re not likely to alter your co-workers’ political views, she said, but you do risk altering their view of you.

“People have some very strong opinions,” she said.

Politics can heat up a room like few topics can, as Pachter witnessed at a beauty salon recently when a woman said of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: “I don’t want the most powerful man in the country being a woman.”

According to a survey conducted last month by staffing agency Adecco USA, 50 percent of American workers talk about politics at the office, while 47 percent listen. The remaining 3 percent of respondents were uncertain where they fell. The survey also found that younger people talk even more about politics at work: 61 percent.

“People can get really extreme, so I think ideally it’s best to avoid it,” Pachter said.

In offices that don’t have strict policies against discussing politics it tends to be understood that it isn’t acceptable for employees to dally in political debates.

“Certainly, people have collegial relationships and may have discussions,” Simi Valley, Calif., City Manager Mike Sedell said. “But the purpose of being at work is to work.”

His take is that “any time any conversation takes place in the workplace that makes someone uncomfortable, it is absolutely inappropriate.” Sedell thinks that it is incumbent on the employer to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Large employers such as Amgen Inc. and Baxter BioScience, both in Thousand Oaks, Calif., don’t police their employees’ discussions.

“If it is done in a respectful, nondisruptive manner, then employees can discuss their personal beliefs in the workplace,” Baxter spokeswoman Deborah Spak said.

But she adds this caveat:

“We do have no solicitation’ policies in our workplaces, so an employee would have to be careful that their communications are not construed of as a solicitation by their co-workers.”

Similarly, Amgen has no specific policy regulating employees’ discussions about politics at work.